I remember reading Wright’s New Yorker essay on Scientology that spawned this book a little while back. He seems aware that picking a fight with a religion everyone already more or less laughs at is more bullying than productive, so he wisely finds a “donkey” to bear the burden of a storyline for his book: former movie director Paul Haggis. Wright won a Pulitzer for his last book, and McGrath compares the author’s approach to that of Marc’s homeboy Robert Caro. Probably pretty good.

A lot of classic comics are getting some nice rerelease omnibus editions lately. Our own Aaron Block has a write up of a Flash Gordon collection coming out later this week. Here, Dirda turns his eyes towards comics, namely Scrooge McDuck comics. I never really read any Disney comics as a kid, except for this one Donal Duck one we had in French (and I didn’t understand), but I used to love DuckTales as a kid, so a collection of Scrooge comics is definitely something I’d be interested in thumbing through.

Here’s a zombie book without zombies. Instead children all over the world become homicidal maniacs. As if that’s not enough to turn you off, the book is also a crime story tha follows a detective with Aspergers Syndrome. I have a feeling if this were reviewed by anyone besides the timid Kellogg (referring to a book’s “promising story” is soft-review for “it sucks, but maybe if a different writer had done something similar but completely different it might be okay”) they would tear it apart, because this sounds like a boring mess.

Quickly: Not sure why I even read this, let alone found it funny. I think I need to make a point to read at least one book from these series. Rich and looking to blow some cash? A bunch of Maurice Sendak art is going up for auction. Check out this years Golden Hatchet winners for pans.